^j0t^LC 


I  ADDRESS 


OF  THE 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES 


TO  THE 


SENATE  OF  THE 
UNITED    STATES 


JULY  10,  1919 


FROM  CONGRESSMAN 

HENRY  Z.  OSBORNE 

Tenth  District,  California 


WASHINGTON 
1919 


ADDRESS 


GENTLEAfEN  OF  THE  Senate  :  The  treaty  of  peace  with  Germany 
was  signed  at  Versailles  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  June.  I  avail  my- 
self of  the  earliest  opportunity  to  lay  the  treaty  before  you  for  rati- 
fication and  to  inform  you  with  regard  to  the  work  of  the  Conference 
by  which  that  treaty  was  formulated. 

The  treaty  constitutes  nothing  less  than  a  world  settlement.  It 
would  not  be  possible  for  me  either  to  summarize  or  to  construe  its 
manifold  provisions  in  an  address  which  must  of  necessity  be  some- 
thing less  than  a  treatise.  My  services  and  all  the  information  I  pos- 
sess will  be  at  your  disposal  and  at  the  disposal  of  your  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations  at  any  time,  either  informally  or  in  session,  as 
you  may  prefer;  and  I  hope  that  you  will  not  hesitate  to  make  use 
of  them.  I  shall  at  this  time,  prior  to  j'our  own  study  of  the  docu- 
ment, attempt  only  a  general  characterization  of  its  scope  and 
purpose. 

In  one  sense,  no  doubt,  there  is  no  need  that  I  should  report  to  you 
what  was  attempted  and  done  at  Paris.  You  have  been  daily  cogni- 
zant of  what  was  going  on  there, — of  the  problems  with  which  the 
Peace  Conference  had  to  deal  and  of  the  difficulty  of  laying  down 
straight  lines  of  settlement  anywhere  on  a  field  on  which  the  old  lines 
of  international  relationship,  and  the  new  alike,  followed  so  intricate 
a  pattern  and  were  for  the  most  part  cut  so  deep  by  historical  cir- 
cumstances which  dominated  action  even  where  it  would  have  been 
best  to  ignore  or  reverse  them.  The  cross  currents  of  politics  and  of 
interest  must  have  been  evident  to  you.  It  would  be  presuming  in  me 
to  attempt  to  explain  the  questions  which  arose  or  the  many  diverse 
elements  that  entered  into  them.  I  shall  attempt  something  less  ambi- 
tious than  that  and  more  clearly  suggested  by  my  duty  to  report  to 
the  Congress  the  part  it  seemed  necessary  for  my  colleagues  and  mo 
to  play  as  the  representatives  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 

That  part  was  dictated  by  the  role  America  had  played  in  the  war 
and  by  the  expectations  that  had  been  created  in  the  minds  of  the 
peoples  with  whom  we  had  associated  ourselves  in  that  great  strug- 
gle. 

The  United  States  entered  the  war  upon  a  different  footing  from 
every  other  nation  except  our  associates  on  this  side  the  sea.  Wo 
entered  it,  not  because  our  material  interests  were  directly  threatened 
12G733°— 18  (3) 


or  because  any  special  treaty  obligations  to  which  we  were  parties 
had  been  violated,  but  only  because  we  saw  the  supremacy,  and  even 
the  validit}',  of  right  everywhere  put  in  jeopardy  and  free  govern- 
ment likely  to  be  everywhere  imperiled  by  the  intolerable  aggression 
of  a  power  which  respected  neither  right  nor  obligation  and  whose 
very  system  of  government  flouted  the  rights  of  the  citizen  as  against 
the  autocratic  authority  of  his  governors.  And  in  the  settlements  of 
the  peace  we  have  sought  no  special  reparation  for  ourselves,  but  only 
the  restoration  of  right  and  the  assurance  of  liberty  everywhere 
that  the  effects  of  the  settlement  were  to  be  felt.  We  entered  the 
war  as  the  disinterested  champions  of  right  and  we  interested  our- 
selves in  the  terms  of  the  peace  in  no  other  capacity. 

The  hopes  of  the  nations  allied  against  the  central  powers  were  at 
a  very  low  ebb  when  our  soldiers  began  to  pour  across  the  sea.  There 
was  everywhere  amongst  them,  except  in  their  stoutest  spirits,  a 
sombre  foreboding  of  disaster.  The  war  ended  in  November,  eight 
months  ago,  but  you  have  only  to  recall  what  was  feared  in  midsum- 
mer last,  four  short  months  before  the  armistice,  to  realize  what  it 
was  that  our  timely  aid  accomplished  alike  for  their  morale  and  their 
physical  safety.  That  first,  never-to-be-forgotten  action  at  Chateau-- 
Thierry  had  already  taken  place.  Our  redoutable  soldiers  and  ma- 
rines had  already  closed  the  gap  the  enemy Jiad  succeeded  in  opening 
for  their  advance  upon  Paris, — had  already  turned  the  tide  of  battle 
back  towards  the  frontiers  of  France  and  begun  the  rout  that  was  to 
save  Europe  and  the  world.  Thereafter  the  Germans  were  to  be 
always  forced  back,  back,  were  never  to  thrust  successfully  forward 
again.  And  yet  there  was  no  confident  hope.  Anxious  men  and 
women,  leading  spirits  of  France,  attended  the  celebration  of  the 
fourth  of  July  last  year  in  Paris  out  of  generous  courtesy, — wdth  no 
heart  for  festivity,  little  zest  for  hope.  But  they  came  away  with 
something  new  at  their  hearts :  they  have  themselves  told  us  so.  The 
mere  sight  of  our  men, — of  their  vigour,  of  the  confidence  that  showed 
itself  in  every  movement  of  their  stalwart  figures  and  every  turn  of 
their  swinging  march,  in  their  steady  comprehending  eyes  and  easy 
discipline,  in  the  indomitable  air  that  added  spirit  to  everything  they 
did, — made  everyone  who  saw  them  that  memorable  day  realize  that 
something  had  happened  that  was  much  more  than  a  mere  incident 
in  the  fighting,  something  very  different  from  the  mere  arrival  of 
fresh  troops.  A  great  moral  force  had  flung  itself  into  the  struggle. 
The  fine  physical  force  of  those  spirited  men  spoke  of  something  more 
than  bodily  vigour.  They  carried  the  great  ideals  of  a  free  people 
at  their  hearts  and  with  that  vision  were  unconquerable.  Their  very 
presence  brought  reassurance ;  their  fighting  made  victory  certain. 

They  were  recognized  as  crusaders,  and  as  their  thousands  swelled 
to  millions  their  strength  was  seen  to  mean  salvation.    And  they  were 


fit  men  to  carry  such  a  hope  and  make  good  the  assurance  it  forecast. 
Finer  men  never  went  into  battle;  and  their  officers  were  worthy  of 
them.  This  is  not  the  occasion  upon  which  to  utter  a  eulogj^  of  the 
armies  America  sent  to  France,  but  perhaps,  since  I  am  speaking  of 
their  mission,  I  may  speak  also  of  the  pride  I  shared  with  every  Ameri- 
can who  saw  or  dealt  with  them  there.  They  were  the  sort  of  men 
America  would  wish  to  be  represented  by,  the  sort  of  men  every  Ameri- 
can would  wish  to  claim  as  fellowcountrymen  and  comrades  in  a  great 
cause.  They  were  terrible  in  battle,  and  gentle  and  helpful  out  of  it, 
remembering  the  mothers  and  the  sisters,  the  wives  and  the  little 
children  at  home.  They  were  free  men  under  arms,  not  forgetting 
their  ideals  of  duty  in  the  midst  of  tasks  of  violence.  I  am  proud  to 
have  had  the  privilege  of  being  associated  with  them  and  of  calling 
myself  their  leader. 

But  I  speak  now  of  what  they  meant  to  the  men  by  whose  sides  they 
fought  and  to  the  people  with  whom  they  mingled  with  such  utter 
simplicity,  as  friends  who  asked  only  to  be  of  service.  They  were  for 
all  the  visible  embodiment  of  America.  What  they  did  made  America 
and  all  that  she  stood  for  a  living  reality  in  the  thoughts  not  only  of 
the  people  of  France  but  also  of  tens  of  millions  of  men  and  women 
throughout  all  the  toiling  nations  of  a  world  standing  everywhere  in 
peril  of  its  freedom  and  of  the  loss  of  everything  it  held  dear,  in 
deadly  fear  that  its  bonds  were  never  to  be  loosed,  its  hopes  forever 
to  be  mocked  and  disappointed. 

And  the  compulsion  of  what  they  stood  for  was  upon  ns  who 
represented  America  at  the  peace  table.  It  was  our  duty  to  see  to  it 
that  every  decision  we  took  part  in  contributed,  so  far  as  we  were  able 
to  influence  it,  to  quiet  the  fears  and  realize  the  hopes  of  the  peoples 
who  had  been  living  in  that  shadow,  the  nations  that  had  come  by 
our  assistance  to  their  freedom.  It  was  our  duty  to  do  everything 
that  it  was  within  our  power  to  do  to  make  the  triumph  of  freedom 
and  of  right  a  lasting  triumph  in  the  assurance  of  which  men  might 
everywhere  live  without  fear. 

Old  entanglements  of  every  kind  stood  in  the  way, — promises 
"which  Governments  had  made  to  one  another  in  the  days  when 
might  and  right  were  confused  and  the  power  of  the  victor  was  with- 
out restraint.  Engagements  which  contemplated  any  dispositions  of 
territory,  any  extensions  of  sovereignty  that  might  seem  to  be  to 
the  interest  of  those  who  had  the  power  to  insist  upon  them,  had  been 
entered  into  without  thought  of  what  the  peoples  concerned  might 
wish  or  profit  by ;  and  these  could  not  alwa5's  be  honourably  brushed 
aside.  It  was  not  easy  to  graft  the  new  order  of  ideas  on  the  old, 
and  some  of  the  fruits  of  the  grafting  may,  I  fear,  for  a  time  be 
bitter.  But,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  men  wlio  sat  with  us  at 
the  peace  table  desired  as  sincerely  as  we  did  to  get  away  from  the 


bad  influences,  the  illegitimate  purposes,  the  demoralizing  ambitions, 
the  international  counsels  and  expedients  out  of  which  the  sinister 
designs  of  Germany  had  sprung  as  a  natural  growth. 

It  had  been  our  privilege  to  formulate  the  principles  which  were 
accepted  as  the  basis  of  the  peace,  but  they  had  been  accepted,  not 
because  we  had  come  in  to  hasten  and  assure  the  victory  and  in- 
sisted upon  them,  but  because  they  were  readily  acceded  to  as  the 
principles  to  which  honourable  and  enlightened  minds  everywhere 
had  been  bred.  They  spoke  the  conscience  of  the  world  as  well  as  the 
conscience  of  America,  and  I  am  happy  to  pay  my  tribute  of  respect 
and  gratitude  to  the  able,  forward-looking  men  with  whom  it  was 
my  privilege  to  cooperate  for  their  unfailing  spirit  of  cooperation, 
their  constant  effort  to  accommodate  the  interests  they  represented 
to  the  principles  we  were  all  agreed  upon.  The  difficulties,  which 
were  many,  lay  in  the  circumstances,  not  often  in  the  men.  Almost 
without  exception  the  men  who  led  had  caught  the  true  and  full 
vision  of  the  problem  of  peace  as  an  indivisible  whole,  a  problem, 
not  of  mere  adjustments  of  interest,  bnt  of  justice  and  right  action. 

The  atmosphere  in  which  the  Conference  worked  seemed  cre- 
ated, not  by  the  ambitions  of  strong  govermnents,  but  by  the  hopes 
and  aspirations  of  small  nations  and  of  peoples  hitherto  under  bond- 
age to  the  power  that  victory  had  shattered  and  destroyed.  Two 
great  empires  had  been  forced  into  political  bankruptcy,  and  we  were 
the  receivers.  Our  task  was  not  only  to  make  peace  with  the  central 
empires  and  remedy  the  wrongs  their  armies  had  done.  The  central 
empires  had  lived  in  open  violation  of  many  of  the  very  rights  for 
which  the  war  had  been  fought,  dominating  alien  peoples  over  whom 
they  had  no  natural  right  to  rule,  enforcing,  not  obedience,  but  verita- 
ble bondage,  exploiting  those  who  were  weak  for  the  benefit  of  those 
who  were  masters  and  overlords  only  by  force  of  arms.  There  could 
be  no  peace  until  the  whole  order  of  central  Europe  was  set  right. 

That  meant  that  new  nations  were  to  be  created, — Poland,  Czecho- 
slovakia. Hungary  itself.  No  part  of  ancient  Poland  had  ever  in, 
any  true  sense  become  a  part  of  Germany,  or  of  Austria,  or  of 
Russia.  Bohemia  was  alien  in  every  thought  and  hope  to  the 
monarchy  of  which  slie  had  so  long  been  an  artificial  part;  and  the 
uneasy  partnership  between  Austria  and  Hungary  had  been  one 
rather  of  interest  than  of  kinship  or  sympathy.  The  Slavs  whom 
Austria  had  chosen  to  force  into  her  empire  on  the  south  were  kept 
to  their  obedience  by  nothing  but  fear.  Their  hearts  were  with 
their  kinsmen  in  the  Balkans.  These  were  all  arrangements  of 
power,  not  arrangements  of  natural  union  or  association.  It  was  the 
imperative  task  of  those  who  would  make  peace  and  make  it  intelli- 
gently to  establish  a  new  order  which  would  rest  upon  the  free 


choice  of  peoples  rather  than  upon  the  arbitrary  authority  of 
Hapsburgs  or  HohenzoUerns. 

More  than  that,  great  populations  bound  by  sympathy  and  actual 
kin  to  Rumania  were  also  linked  against  their  will  to  the  con- 
glomerate Austro-Hungarian  monarchy  or  to  other  alien  sovereign- 
ties, and  it  was  part  of  the  task  of  peace  to  make  a  new  Rumania 
as  well  as  a  new  slavic  state  clustering  about  Serbia. 

And  no  natural  frontiers  could  be  found  to  these  new  fields  of  ad- 
justment and  redemption.  It  was  necessary  to  look  constantly  for- 
ward to  other  related  tasks.  The  German  colonies  were  to  be  disposed 
of.  They  had  not  been  governed;  they  had  been  exploited  merely, 
without  thought  of  the  interest  or  even  the  ordinary  human  rights  of 
their  inhabitants. 

The  Turkish  Empire,  moreover,  had  fallen  apart,  as  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  had.  It  had  never  had  any  real  unity.  It  had  been  held 
together  only  by  pitiless,  inhuman  force.  Its  peoples  cried  aloud 
for  release,  for  succour  from  unspeakable  distress,  for  all  that  the 
new  day  of  hope  seemed  at  last  to  bring  within  its  da\\Ti.  Peoples 
hitherto  in  utter  darkness  were  to  be  led  out  into  the  same  light  and 
given  at  last  a  helping  hand.  Undeveloped  peoples  and  peoples  ready 
for  recognition  but  not  yet  ready  to  assume  the  full  responsibilities  of 
statehood  were  to  be  given  adequate  guarantees  of  friendly  protec- 
tion, guidance,  and  assistance. 

And  out  of  the  execution  of  these  great  enterprises  of  liberty  sprang 
opportunities  to  attempt  what  statesmen  had  never  found  the  way 
before  to  do ;  an  opportunity  to  throw  safeguards  about  the  rights  of 
racial,  national,  and  religious  minorities  by  solemn  international 
covenant;  an  opportunity  to  limit  and  regulate  military  establish- 
ments where  they  were  most  likely  to  be  mischievous ;  an  opportunity 
to  effect  a  complete  and  systematic  internationalization  of  waterways 
and  railways  which  were  necessary  to  the  free  economic  life  of  more 
than  one  nation  and  to  clear  many  of  the  normal  channels  of  com- 
merce of  unfair  obstructions  of  law  or  of  privilege;  and  the  very 
welcome  opportunity  to  secure  for  labour  the  concerted  protection  of 
definite  international  pledges  of  princijjle  and  practice. 

These  were  not  tasks  which  the  Conference  looked  about  it  to  find 
and  went  out  of  its  way  to  perform.  They  were  inseparable  from 
the  settlements  of  peace.  They  were  thrust  upon  it  by  circumstances 
which  could  not  be  overlooked.  The  war  had  created  them.  In  all 
quarters  of  the  world  old  established  relationships  had  been  dis- 
turbed or  broken  and  affairs  were  at  loose  ends,  needing  to  be  mended 
or  united  again,  but  could  not  be  made  what  they  were  before.  They 
had  to  be  set  right  by  applying  some  uniform  principle  of  justice  or 
enlightened  expediency.  And  they  could  not  be  adjusted  by  merely 
prescribing  in  a  treaty  what  should  be  done.    New  st^ites  were  to  be 


at 

set  up  which  could  not  hope  to  live  through  their  first  period  of  weak-, 
ness  without  assured  support  by  the  great  nations  that  had  consented 
to  their  creation  and  won  for  them  their  independence.  Ill  governed 
colonies  could  not  be  put  in  the  hands  of  governments  which  were  to 
act  as  trustees  for  their  people  and  not  as  their  masters  if  there  was 
to  be  no  common  authority  among  the  nations  to  which  they  were  to 
be  responsible  in  the  execution  of  their  trust.  Future  international 
conventions  with  regard  to  the  control  of  waterways,  with  regard  to 
illicit  traffic  of  many  kinds,  in  arms  or  in  deadly  drugs,  or  with  re- 
gard to  the  adjustment  of  many  varying  international  administra- 
tive arrangements  could  not  be  assured  if  the  treaty  were  to  provide 
no  permanent  common  international  agevicy,  if  its  execution  in  such 
matters  was  to  be  left  to  the  slow  and  uncertain  processes  of  co- 
operation by  ordinary  methods  of  negotiation.  If  the  Peace 
Conference  itself  was  to  be  the  end  of  cooperative  authority  and 
common  counsel  among  the  governments  to  which  the  world  was 
looking  to  enforce  justice  and  give  pledges  of  an  enduring  settlement, 
regions  like  the  Saar  basin  could  not  be  put  under  a  temporary  ad- 
ministrative regime  which  did  not  involve  a  transfer  of  political 
sovereignty  and  which  contemplated  a  final  determination  of  its 
political  connections  by  popular  vote  to  be  taken  at  a  distant  date; 
no  free  city  like  Dantzig  could  be  created  which  was,  under  elaborate 
international  guarantees,  to  accept  exceptional  obligations  with  re- 
gard to  the  use  of  its  port  and  exceptional  relations  with  a  State 
of  which  it  was  not  to  form  a  part ;  properly  safeguarded  plebes-  i 
cites  could  not  be  provided  for  where  populations  were  at  some 
future  date  to  make  choice  what  sovereignty  they  would  live  under; 
no  certain  and  uniform  method  of  arbitration  could  be  secured  for 
the  settlement  of  anticipated  difficulties  of  final  decision  with  regard 
to  many  matters  dealt  with  in  the  treaty  itself;  the  long-continued 
supervision  of  the  task  of  reparation  which  Germany  was  to  under- 
take to  complete  Avithin  the  next  generation  might  entirely  break 
down;  the  reconsideration  and  revision  of  administrative  arrange- 
ments and  restrictions  which  the  treaty  prescribed  but  which  it  was 
recognized  might  not  prove  of  lasting  advantage  or  entirely  fair  if 
too  long  enforced  would  be  impracticable.  The  promises  govern- 
ments were  making  to  one  another  about  the  way  in  which  labour 
was  to  be  dealt  with,  by  law  not  only  but  in  fact  as  well,  would  re- 
main a  mere  humane  thesis  if  there  was  to  be  no  common  tribunal  of 
opinion  and  judgment  to  which  liberal  statesmen  could  resort  for  the 
influences  which  alone  might  secure  their  redemption.  A  league  of 
free  nations  had  become  a  practical  necessity.  Examine  the  treaty 
of  peace  and  you  will  find  that  everywhere  throughout  its  manifold 
provisions  its  framers  have  felt  obliged  to  turn  to  the  League  of 
Nations  as  an  indispensable  instrumentality  for  the  maintenance 


of  the  new  order  it  lias  been  their  purpose  to  set  up  in  the  world, — the 
world  of  civilized  men. 

That  there  should  be  a  league  of  nations  to  steady  the  counsels 
and  maintain  the  peaceful  understandings  of  the  world,  to  make,  not 
treaties  alone,  but  the  accepted  principles  of  international  law  as 
well,  the  actual  rule  of  conduct  among  the  governments  of  the  world, 
had  been  one  of  the  agreements  accepted  from  the  first  as  the  basis 
of  peace  with  the  central  powers.  The  statesmen  of  all  the  belligerent 
countries  were  agreed  that  such  a  league  must  be  created  to  sustain 
the  settlements  that  were  to  be  effected.  But  at  first  I  think  there 
was  a  feeling  among  some  of  them  that,  while  it  must  be  attempted, 
the  formation  of  such  a  league  was  perhaps  a  counsel  of  perfection 
which  practical  men,  long  exi^erienced  in  the  world  of  affairs,  must 
agree  to  very  cautiously  and  with  many  misgivings.  It  was  only  as 
the  difficult  work  of  arranging  an  all  but  universal  adjustment  of 
the  world's  affairs  advanced  from  day  to  day  from  one  stage  of  con- 
ference to  another  that  it  became  evident  to  them  that  what  they 
were  seeking  would  be  little  more  than  something  written  upon  paper, 
to  be  interpreted  and  applied  by  such  methods  as  the  chances  of 
politics  might  make  available  if  they  did  not  provide  a  means  of 
common  counsel  which  all  were  obliged  to  accept,  a  common  author- 
ity whose  decisions  would  be  recognized  as  decisions  which  all  must 
respect. 

And  so  the  most  practical,  the  most  skeptical  among  them  turned 
more  and  more  to  the  League  as  the  authority  thix>ugh  which  inter- 
national action  was  to  be  secured,  the  authority  without  which,  as 
they  had  come  to  see  it,  it  would  be  difficult  to  give  assured  effect 
either  to  this  treaty  or  to  any  other  international  understanding 
upon  which  they  were  to  depend  for  the  maintenance  of  peace.  The 
fact  that  the  Covenant  of  the  League  was  the  first  substantive  part 
of  the  treaty  to  be  worked  out  and  agreed  upon,  while  all  else  was 
in  solution,  helped  to  make  the  formulation  of  the  rest  easier.  The 
Conference  was,  after  all,  not  to  be  ephemeral.  The  concert  of 
nations  was  to  continue,  imder  a  definite  Covenant  which  had  been 
agreed  upon  and  which  all  were  convinced  was  workable.  They 
could  go  forward  with  confidence  to  make  arrangements  intended 
to  be  permiuient  The  most  practical  of  the  confereea  were  at  last 
the  most  ready  to  refer  to  the  I-^eague  of  Nations  the  superintendence 
of  all  interests  which  did  not  admit  of  immediate  determination,  of 
all  administrative  problems  which  were  to  require  a  continuing  over- 
sight. What  had  seemetl  a  counsel  of  perfection  had  come  to  seem 
a  plain  counsel  of  necessity.  The  League  of  Nations  was  the 
practical  statesman's  hope  of  success  in  many  of  the  most  difficult 
things  he  was  attempting. 


10 

And  it  had  validated  itself  in  the  thought  of  every  member  of 
the  Conference  as  something  much  bigger,  much  greater  every  way, 
than  a  mere  instrument  for  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  a  par- 
ticular treaty.  It  was  universally  recognized  that  all  the  peoples 
of  the  world  demanded  of  the  Conference  that  it  should  create 
such  a  continuing  concert  of  free  nations  as  would  make  wars  of 
aggression  and  spoliation  such  as  this  that  has  just  ended  forever 
impossible.  A  cry  had  gone  out  from  every  home  in  every  stricken 
land  from  which  sons  and  brothers  and  fathers  had  gone  forth  to 
the  great  sacrifice  that  such  a  sacrifice  should  never  again  be  exacted. 
It  was  manifest  why  it  had  been  exacted.  It  had  been  exacted 
because  one  nation  desired  dominion  and  other  nations  had  known 
no  means  of  defence  except  armaments  and  alliances.  War  had  lain 
at  the  heart  of  every  arrangement  of  the  Europe, — of  every  arrange- 
ment of  the  world, — that  preceded  the  war.  Restive  peoples  had 
been  told  that  fleets  and  armies,  which  they  toiled  to  sustain,  meant 
peace;  and  they  now  knew  that  they  they  had  been  lied  to:  that 
fleets  and  armies  had  been  maintained  to  promote  national  ambitions 
and  meant  war.  They  knew  that  no  old  policy  meant  anything. else 
but  force,  force, — always  force.  And  they  knew  that  it  was  intoler- 
able. Every  true  heart  in  the  world,  and  every  enlightened  judg- 
ment demanded  that,  at  whatever  cost  of  independent  action,  every 
government  that  took  thought  for  its  people  or  for  justice  or  for 
ordered  freedom  should  lend  itself  to  a  new  purpose  and  utterly 
destroy  the  old  order  of  international  politics.  Statesmen  might  see 
difficulties,  but  the  people  could  see  none  and  could  brook  no  denial. 
A  war  in  which  they  had  been  bled  white  to  beat  the  terror  that 
lay  concealed  in  every  Balance  of  Power  must  not  end  in  a  mere 
victory  of  arms  and  a  new  balance.  The  monster  that  had  resorted 
to  arms  must  be  put  in  chains  that  could  not  be  broken.  The  united 
power  of  free  nations  must  put  a  stop  to  aggression,  and  the  world 
must  be  given  peace.  If  there  was  not  the  will  or  the  intelligence 
to  accomplish  that  now,  there  must  be  another  and  a  final  war  and 
the  world  must  be  swept  clean  of  every  power  that  could  renew  the 
terror.  The  League  of  Nations  was  not  merely  an  instrument  to 
adjust  and  remedy  old  wrongs  under  a  new  treaty  of  peace;  it  was 
the  only  hope  for  mankind.  Again  and  again  had  the  demon  of 
war  been  cast  out  of  the  house  of  the  peoples  and  the  house  .swept 
clean  by  a  treaty  of  peace;  only  to  prepare  a. time  when  he  would 
enter  in  again  with  spirits  worse  than  himself.  The  house  must 
now  be  given  a  tenant  who  could  hold  it  against  all  such.  Con- 
venient, indeed  indispensable,  as  statesmen  found  the  newly  planned 
League  of  Nations  to  be  for  the  execution  of  present  plans  of  peace 
and  reparation,  they  saw  it  in  a  new  aspect  before  their  work  was 


11 

finished.  They  saw  it  as  the  main  object  of  the  peace,  as  the  only 
thing  that  could  complete  it  or  make  it  worth  while.  They  saw  it 
as  the  hope  of  the  world,  and  that  hope  they  did  not  dare  to  dis- 
appoint. Shall  we  or  any  other  free  people  hesitate  to  accept  this 
great  duty?    Dare  we  reject  it  and  break  the  heart  of  the  world? 

And  so  the  result  of  the  Conference  of  Peace,  so  far  as  Germany  is 
concewied,  stands  complete.  The  difficulties  encountered  were  very 
many.  Sometimes  they  seemed  insuperable.  It  was  impossible  to 
accommodate  the  interests  of  so  great  a  body  of  nations, — interests 
which  directly  or  indirectly  affected  almost  every  nation  in  the 
world, — without  many  minor  compromises.  The  treaty,  as  a  result, 
is  not  exactly  what  we  would  have  written.  It  is  probably  not  what 
any  one  of  the  national  delegations  would  have  written.  But  results 
were. worked  out  which  on  the  whole  bear  test.  I  think  that  it  will 
be  found  that  the  compromises  which  were  accepted  as  inevitable 
nowhere  cut  to  the  heart  of  any  principle.  The  work  of  the  Con- 
ference squares,  as  a  whole,  with  the  principles  agreed  upon  as  the 
basis  of  the  peace  as  well  as  with  the  practical  possibilities  of  the 
international  situations  which  had  to  be  faced  and  dealt  with  as  facts. 

I  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  lay  before  you  a  special  treaty 
with  France,  whose  object  is  the  temporary  protection  of  Franco 
from  unprovoked  aggression  by  the  Power  with  whom  this  treaty  of 
peace  has  been  negotiated.  Its  terms  link  it  with  this  treaty.  I  take 
the  liberty,  however,  of  reserving  it  for  special  explication  on  another 
ocotision.  '•"•   'i^i-'-'^- 

The  role  which  America  was  to  play  in  the  Conference  seemed  de- 
termined, as  I  have  said,  before  my  colleagues  and  I  got  to  Paris, — 
detoimined  by  the  universal  expectations  of  the  nations  whose  repre- 
sentatives, drawn  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  we  were  to  deal  with. 
It  was  universally  recognized  that  America  had  entei*ed  the  war  to 
promote  no  private  or  peculiar  interest  of  her  own  but  only  as  the 
champion  of  rights  which  she  was  glad  to  share  with  free  men  and 
lovere  of  justice  everywhere.  We  had  formulated  the  principles  upon 
which  the  settlement  was  to  be  made, — ^the  principles  upon  which  the 
armistice  had  been  agreed  to  and  the  parleys  of  peace  undertaken, — ■ 
and  no  one  doubted  that  our  desire  was  to  see  the  treaty  of  peace 
formulated  along  the  actual  lines  of  those  principles, — and  desired 
nothirig  else.  We  were  welcomed  as  disinterested  friends.  We  were 
resorte<l  to  as  arbiters  in  many  a  difficult  matter.  It  was  recognized 
tiiat  our  material  aid  would  be  indispensable  in  the  days  to  come, 
when  industry  and  credit  would  have  to  be  brought  back  to  their  nor- 
mal operation  again  and  communities  beaten  to  the  groimd  assisted  to 
their  feet  once  more,  and  it  was  taken  for  granted,  I  am  proud  to  say, 
that  we  would  play  the  helpful  friend  in  these  things  as  in  all  others 


12 

without  prejudice  or  favour.  We  were  generously  accepted  as  the  un- 
affected champions  of  what  was  right.  It  was  a  very  responsible  role 
to  play ;  but  I  am'  happy  to  report  that  the  fine  group  of  Americans 
who  helped  with  their  expert  advice  in  each  part  of  the  varied  settle- 
ments sought  in  every  transaction  to  justify  the  high  confidence  re- 
posed in  them. 

And  that  confidence,  it  seems  to  mc,  is  the  measure  of  our  oppor- ; 
tunity  and  of  our  duty  in  the  days  to  come,  in  which  the  new  hope  of 
the  peoples  of  the  world  is  to  be  fulfilled  or  disappointed.  The  fact 
that  America  is  the  friend  of  the  nations,  whether  they  be  rivals  or 
associates,  is  no  new  fact:  it  is  only  the  discovery  of  it  by  the  rest  of 
the  world  that  is  new. 

America  may  be  said  to  have  just  reached  her  majority  as  a 
world  power.  It  was  almost  exactly  twenty-one  years  ago  that 
the  results  of  the  war  with  Spain  put  us  unexpectedly  in  posses- 
sion of  rich  islands  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  and  brought 
us  into  association  with  other  governments  in  the  control  of  the 
West  Indies.  It  was  regarded  as  a  sinister  and  ominous  thing  by 
the  statesmen  of  more  than  one  European  chancellery  that  we  should 
have  extended  our  power  beyond  the  confines  of  our  continental  do- 
minions. They  were  accustomed  to  think  of  new  neighbours  as  a 
new  menace,  of  rivals  as  watchful  enemies.  There  were  persons 
amongst  us  at  home  who  looked  with  deep  disapproval  and  avowed 
anxiety  on  such  extensions  of  our  national  authority  over  distant 
islands  and  over  peoples  whom  they  feared  we  might  exploit,  not 
serve  and  assist.  But  we  have  not  exploited  them.  We  have  been 
their  friends  and  have  sought  to  serve  them.  And  our  dominion  has 
been  a  menace  to  no  other  nation.  We  redeemed  our  honour  to  the 
utmost  in  our  dealings  with  Cuba.  She  is  weak  but  absolutely  free; 
and  it  is  her  trust  in  us  that  makes  her  free.  Weak  peoples  every- 
where stand  ready  to  give  us  any  authority  among  them  that  will 
assure  them  a  like  friendly  oversight  and  direction.  They  know  that 
there  is  no  ground  for  fear  in  receiving  us  as  their  mentors  and  guides. 
Our  isolation  was  ended  twenty  years  ago;  and  now  fear  of  us  is 
ended  also,  our  counsel  and  association  sought  after  and  desired. 
There  can  be  no  question  of  our  ceasing  to  be  a  world  power.  The 
only  question  is  whether  we  can  refuse  the  moral  leadership  that  is 
offered  us,  whether  we  shall  accept  or  reject  the  confidence  of  the 
world. 

The  war  and  the  Conference  of  Peace  now  sitting  in  Paris  seem  to 
me  to  have  answered  that  question.  Our  participation  in  the  war 
established  our  position  among  the  nations  and  nothing  but  our  own 
mistaken  action  can  alter  it.  It  was  not  an  accident  or  a  matter  of 
sudden  choice  that  we  are  no  longer  isolated  and  devoted  to  a  policy 
which  has  only  our  own  interest  and  advantage  for  its  object.    It  was 


13 

our  duty  to  go  in,  if  we  were  indeed  the  champions  of  liberty  and  of 
right.  We  answered  to  the  call  of  duty  in  a  way  so  spirited,  so  utterly 
without  thought  of  what  we  spent  of  blood  or  treasure,  so  effective, 
so  worthy  of  the  admiration  of  true  men  everywhere,  so  wrought  out 
of  the  stuff  of  all  that  was  heroic,  that  the  whole  world  saw  at  last, 
in  the  flesh,  in  noble  action,  a  great  ideal  asserted  and  vindicated,  by 
a  -nation  they  had  deemed  material  and  now  found  to  be  compact  of 
the  spiritual  forces  that  must  free  men  of  every  nation  from  every 
unworthy  bondage.  It  is  thus  that  a  new  role  and  a  new  responsi- 
bility have  come  to  this  great  nation  that  we  honour  and  which  we 
would  all  wish  to  lift  to  yet  higher  levels  of  service  and  achievement. 
The  stage  is  set,  the  destiny  disclosed.  It  has  come  about  by  no 
plan  of  our  conceiving,  but  by  the  hand  of  God  who  led  us  into  this 
way.  We  cannot  turn  back.  We  can  only  go  forward,  with  lifted 
eyes  and  freshened  spirit,  to  follow  the  vision.  It  was  of  this  that  we 
dreamed  at  our  birth.  America  shall  in  truth  show  the  way.  The 
light  streams  upon  the  path  ahead,  and  nowhere  else. 


A     001  135  335     6 


LIBRARY 
PUBLIC  AFFAIRS  SERVICE 

SEP  0  7  1990 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


